Worldview commitment and narrative foreclosure among older Dutch adults: Assessing the importance of grand narratives

ABSTRACT

Grand narratives offered by religion and other worldviews provide a background against which people can narrate their personal life stories. Therefore, the extent of commitment older adults experience toward their worldview is expected to influence the narrative openness of their life story. Regression analyses based on a survey study among 356 older Dutch adults demonstrate that reconsideration of the commitment toward their worldview is associated with “narrative foreclosure”: the premature sentiment that their life story is actually over. Moreover, the association we found between age and narrative foreclosure toward the future emphasizes the lack of vital cultural narratives of aging.

KEYWORDS:

• Aging
• cultural narratives
• narrative gerontology
• religion
• worldview

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1. Because we expect more people who were too young to have received the questionnaire but not to have reported this, the actual response rate was probably higher.

^2. Source for population values on gender, age, civil state, and country of birth: Statline, Statistics Netherlands, “Population in The Netherlands on 1 January by sex, age, marital status, origin and generation”; year: 2016 (https://opendata.cbs.nl/statline/portal.html?_la=en&_catalog=CBS&tableId=37325eng&_theme=1046).

^3. Nine respondents were still 74 but would turn 75 in the year the survey was taken; these were included in the age range of 75–79. The three respondents who did not indicate their age range did declare they were 75 years or older.

^4. Source for population values on education level: Statline, Statistics Netherlands, datafile “Bevolking; hoogstbehaald onderwijsniveau en onderwijsrichting”; year: 2016 (https://opendata.cbs.nl/#/CBS/nl/dataset/82816NED/table?ts=1516870377246); data based on the Labour Force Survey (LFS).

^5. Source for population values on church membership and attendance: Statline, Statistics Netherlands, datafile: “Religieuze betrokkenheid; persoonskenmerken”; year 2015 (https://opendata.cbs.nl/#/CBS/nl/dataset/82904NED/table?ts=1516870408662); data based on the Labour Force Survey (LFS).

^6. For religiously unaffiliated respondents, who were not requested to indicate their frequency of church attendance, frequency of church attendance was set at the lowest level.

^7. Source for population values on institutionalization: Statline, Statistics Netherlands, datafile “Personen in institutionele huishoudens; geslacht en leeftijd”; year 2016 (https://opendata.cbs.nl/#/CBS/nl/dataset/82887NED/table?ts=1516870439308).

^8. Four of these described their worldview as both Christian and humanist.

^9. ICECAP-O stands for ICEpop (Investigating Choice Experiments for the Preferences of Older People) CAPability measure for Older people.

^10. Nine respondents who were still 74 when filling in the survey but would turn 75 in the year the survey was taken were also included in this group.

^11. Due to the nature of the questionnaire, respondents who indicated being religiously unaffiliated were not asked to indicate their frequency of church attendance. For them, frequency of church attendance was set at the lowest level (less than once a year/(almost) never).

^12. Nine respondents who were still 74 when they received the questionnaire but would turn 75 in that same year were included in the study.